Stawberries or Blood
by AllBiDean
Summary: Maka was born only able to see red and Soul found the greens when he was two or The one where Meisters and Weapons are colour blind, to all colours other than they eye colour of their weapon partner/ meister.


Maka Albarn sat crossed-legged on the corner of her stripped mattress; the room around her was empty bar the mattress she was sitting on. Today was the first day of the school year and for Maka, it was her first day of school, period. Maka was home-schooled from the age of 13 and trained by her father Spirit. When she was at that age she Mom had went missing and it had caused a major upset from Maka but later she found out that her mother had given up on her womanising husband and had filed for a devoice, opting to travel the world. She had not forgotten Maka though; she sent a postcard every month to update her on her whereabouts. It was because of Kami Albarn that Maka wanted to go to this school.

In the world there are three types of people. The ordinary people, which are completely normal. Weapons, who have the ability to transform into a weapon and then there were meisters; they had certain quality in their souls that allowed them to not only hold Weapons but also to fight alongside them. Normally there is for nearly every weapon a meister that's soul perfectly synchs with theirs; like a soul match kind of thing. When a Weapon or meister is born they are colour-blind, well close to. When you have a soul-match you can only see the colour that matches your partner's eye; and so in some cruel joke for years growing up Maka had only having been able to see the colour red. Red, would you believe it.

It was all on the souls Maka learned you had to be able to synchronise your souls to enable you to fight effectively. To make matters harder, you could make the Weapon stronger by defeating pre-Kishens; humans who had committed the inhuman act of eating another human soul therefore tainting their soul leading it on the destructive path that could lead to them becoming a Kishen, a demon. Once you defeat them, the Weapon eats the pre-Kishen's soul and it makes them stronger. Her mother was one of the best meisters alive and had created the most powerful scythe Weapon, Her father. It was imperative that she not only become as great as her mother is, to also help her weapon become more powerful than her father is.

"Maka?" Speak of the devil; Maka looked up at her father who hung awkwardly. Maka resembled her mother more than her father; where he had dark crimson hair, Maka had been told that she had dirty blonde-grey colour. He also told her she had green eyes like her mother while he had told her his was blue. "Your Mama would be proud of you, I know it's going to be hard but I'll be there too." Death, he loved to act as if he was actually concerned, _he_ kept her out of school had rendered her unable to meet her partner for years and now because _he_ was getting a job at the Death Weapon Meister Academy she was able to integrate into society. The Academy was run by Death; yes the Death, the god. It's a weird world but you get used to it.

"Papa, I'm not actually worried, I'll be fine" She got up, brushing down her black skirt "and you being there is not very inspirational." She grabbed her school bag and slung it over her shoulder "Are we going?" Spirit just nodded, used to how she felt about him.

The car ride was quiet, this would be the last car ride they would have; Maka thought happily. She had an apartment close to the Academy now and would be staying there from now own. Spirit had obliged to get it but it was in one of the patrolled streets where most of the older students stayed. They were Boys and girls dorms for the younger kids but once you were sixteen they gave more freedoms.

Death Weapon Meister Academy was an imposing building and in some ways defied all laws of gravity; the worst bit was the stairs. There were so many of them god damn it, and there were people sprinting up them. Crazy people but they were training for life and death. Calm down Maka its cool be cool. She focused on breathing and climbed the stairs.

The Normally Overcome Target class or N.O.T sign up was Hell, Hade, and Purgatory: whatever you what to call it that what is. Maka was of course sixteen but the normal enrolment for first year N. was fourteen. Yes, she was two years older than her classmates were, as if being _home-schooled_ wasn't bad enough. There were (grey scaled) fourteen year olds looking at her in confusion and the admin woman talked very loudly, about her being older than started talking about what a pain her father was. She got a schedule and a slip of paper with a locker number and combination on it. "the N. are meeting for the first hour in lecture hall five, just to get to know each other" Maka nodded and headed down the hall moving around the hoard of teens.

Maka found her locker and dumped her bag in there, not bothering to empty it of her books. She closed the locker and walked up the hall looking for lecture hall five but became distracted by a dark melody coming from one of the music rooms. That, she could gather a piano from her lacking knowledge of all things instrumental. Tensely, she walked to the door and pushed it open slowly.

The room was black and white save for a few blast of red. In the corner of the room was a piano, a grand piano she thought. A teenaged boy or she thought he was, hunched over the piano. He had messy white hair covering most of his face; it was probably a blond of sorts. Concentration hunched his shoulders over and his fingers flew across the ivory keys. The melody was haunting like an old carnival tune or the creepy sound that came before one of those jack-in-the-boxs that had always scared her. Maka stood watching before the song slowly died away.

He sighed and sat up "y'know sneaking up on people isn't really cool" Maka jumped slightly, her first day and someone thought she was creeping on them. He turned around and she looked down embarrassed.

"I wasn't sneaking up I just heard the um" he nodded her head to the piano and he followed her nod and shrugged

"Song?" she nodded looking back around to the door

"Yeah, I just thought it was nice so I came to look what it was," She explained hurriedly

He laughed "Nice? Well you're weird." He got up and walked past her "see you around, Pigtails."

Maka frowned watching him leave. Did he just make fun of her hair? What an asshole. _Come on_ , Maka, she told herself, _you're probably late now_. With that, she walked out of the room and continued on her search for lecture room 5.

As it turned out all you had to do was listen for the sound of complete and utter havoc and follow that. She walked in and the lecture room seemed be turned into a party attempt, but with kids running wild. To Maka's relief to turned out there were other N. who seemed her age. Oh _yay_ , the piano-boy was here too, talking to a short but scarily muscular guy with large spikey grey hair. Next to the short ass was a very tall girl with long black hair. Piano boy looks over and Maka turns away, and goes to talk to some normal people.

After half an hour there was a zero percent chance of Maka finding a partner who:

Was not two years younger than she was

Wasn't an ass

Didn't look at her with terror after she dropped a kid on his ass for being rude

This was hard, she was skilled, she had practiced fighting with her dad; he was a scythe and family's souls could synchronize with no trouble. Maka sighed and leaned against the wall. Her mother probably did not have this much trouble finding her father as a partner. "Hi" Maka looked up, it was the girl who was with the piano guy before. She smiled and Maka felt her face heat up, slightly "Sorry, if I disturbed you. I'm Tsubaki, I haven't seen you before, are you new?"

Maka nodded "yeah, uh uh, new ,yes I enrolled today. I'm Maka, I'm sixteen" she held out here hand and Tsubaki took it "it's nice to meet you Tsubaki. How long have you been here?"

"Oh, I'm a third year N.O.T student but I came when I was fifteen so I'm seventeen. By partner Black*Star is sixteen too though."

"Really, he seems" Maka squinted, trying to find a positive word "energetic" they look u to see Black*Star, the spike haired one apparently; trying to grab onto a hanging light "so are you the Weapon?"

Tsubaki nodded and smiled fondly at Black*Star, oh so it was like that; Maka ignored the small point of disappointment at that. "Yeah, Black Star is a bit of a handful but we get our assignments done…Eventually. You will like it here, there are many reliable partnerless Weapons around. Like, um. Oh yeah, Soul!" Maka looked to where Tsubaki was calling to. From the desks the white haired one was backing away from a small hoard of 14-15 year old girls he looked over to Tsubaki and flippantly turned the girls away before coming over.

"I swear the first years get more annoying every year" the piano boy or ' _Soul_ ' Said, Maka frowned. _Yeah, screw you too._ "Hey" he nodded to Maka who smiled slightly.

Tsubaki squeaked "Oh My _Death_ , Black Star." She turned to Soul and Maka "I'm sorry I need to go deal with this" she turned and ran over to Black*Star who had currently made it his mission to become one with the floor. Maka turned to Soul and froze, oh she had not noticed that before.

His eyes were half widened in shock, probably mirroring hers because _wow that was a beautiful shade of red_. You know, in his eyes... he had res eyes. He smiled slightly, still in shock.

"You a first year?" he asked slightly choked Maka nodded and he raised an eyebrow "aren't you a little old? I mean I know you _look_ kinda like you're fourteen but at the same time you aren't like that" he gestured toward the hoard of fan girls currently attempting to glare Maka into oblivion; al without looking away from Maka's eyes. For a second she wondered why he hadn't said anything then thought how many people had green eyes, maybe she did have it easy.

"I'm going to ignore the slight insult but, yeah, I'm sixteen. What about you? You're not a first year but you're a third year right?"

Soul nodded "No, I'm a fourth year technically- but I'm stuck here until I have the whole, Weapon thing under control; but I'd have to also have to be in a partnership because there are too many Weapons leaving this field of work." I nodded, my father used to rant about the 'no good kids these days who didn't accept their duty to the world'. Meisters had it easy, there were so many that it didn't matter if some skipped out for normal jobs but the Weapons who were force to risk their life because of a gene they were born with.

"Well if you weren't suck with this as a life what would you do?" She asked a watching as he moved to lean on the wall next to her, Maka replicating his movements.

"Well" He sighed leaning his head back "I would have been a pianist or composer, there wouldn't have been a choice" he looked her and rolled his eyes "my whole family are _classical_ musicians" he said classical as though it was a disease and in contrasting it to the music he was playing earlier, it didn't surprise her much. Over and smiled slightly, about to say something else before they both jumped as a loud crashed jolted them from the bubble they had created.

There were two guys who had started fighting and one had attempted to attack the other with a partial transformation, but was a first year so it ended in pain, crashes and blunt ends. After the mess had been cleared and the N. had been expelled from the room Maka stood aimlessly wondering what to do now, there wasn't anything told to them about what to do. She saw Soul be kicked out with Black*star she wanted to talk to him again and subtlety touch him. Hey she could get full colour scale! She looked around and saw Soul bright eyes lighting everything around him, he was looking up the the hall as if he'd lost something, when he turned to here he grinned and walked over to her.

"Thought I'd lost you, so Star, Tsu and I were going to go grab lunch from town since we don't need to be here anymore". Maka nodded slowly, _and you're telling me this why_ she wondered before he groaned and folded his arms "come with us."

Maka stared for a second before it dawned on her that not only did they _want_ her to hang out with them they wanted _her_ to hang out with them. She nodded "yeah sounds good."

Soul smirked "good choice, it's always good to have a new member of the group, even if they are weird home-schooled chicks" She looked up at him frowning but stopped when he winked at her.

Soul looked over at Maka and asked what she wanted, She looked at the menu and shrugged looking to the waiter "chocolate croissant and tea?" the man nodded and turned to the others. Tsubaki got a cheesecake and a coffee, Soul got a coffee and a sandwich while Black*Star ordered the whole café.

Once the waiter had walked off the counter to start their orders Tsubaki turned to Maka, asking about why she had only started school this year. Maka looked away "well, my mama ran off after she and papa got a divorce, I was around 14 and it affected my wavelength dramatically and Papa thought it was better until I had it under control to go to the school. Since Papa is a Death Scythe, he was qualified to teach me at home; his old partner helped with the meister stuff too. This year Papa got a job as a professor and Death's official weapon so he decided I should go too."

Soul nodded and Tsubaki looked sympathetic. Black*Star frowned "So you're not some freak hermit, damn it, I bet ten that you were" she glared at her "you should give me ten to pay him."

Soul rolled his eyes "it's not her fault you made a crappy bet, besides you would have money if you didn't order a crap load of food." He looked back to Maka "so you have any ideas about who you want to be your weapon because-"

Soul was cut off as the waiter bringing them their drinks, and Black*Star jumped into a story about how he (and Tsubaki) defeated three E.A.T partnerships which lasted well into their lunch. Maka called bullshit and Tsubaki deflated slightly throughout the story. Maka raised an eyebrow at Soul who was staring at her face; he looked down before gesturing to her mouth. Confused Maka wiped her mouth finding it covered in chocolate. She looked away.

Maka liked being with this group. The reality was that she had not had friends since she was 13, she talked to people online but _this_ was different. Being in contact and around others was a different, nice. As she and Tsubaki were talking about different clubs and activities her phone started vibrating against the table and Soul picked it up and answered before she was able to.

"Maka Albarn's phone, who's this" he stiffened and looked at Maka going from calm to ' _holy shit I'm worried for my safety right now'_ and Maka could only assume it was her father on the phone. She held out her hand for the phone "yeah, I mean yes sir she's here I'll give her the phone." He handed it to her and she caught the last of a rant from Spirit involving the words _innocence_ and _evil son of a bitch_

"Papa, its Maka, what did you want" She said into the phone.

"Maka; who was that it's the first day you can't be around boys"

Eyes narrowed, Maka replied coolly "I' can be around who I want, now what did you call me for?" Spirit replied with some bullshit answer about making sure she was okay and Maka rolled her eyes "I'm fine I'll talk to you tomorrow" with that she hung up and placed her head on the table "I hate that man"

"Who was-"

"My father" Maka groaned in reply to Tsubaki who started up a conversation about the N.O.T students subjects and the qualifier that occurs half way through the year. A theory and physical test that allows for a N.O.T to move up to E.A.T. Maka re-joined soon enough and her mood jumped miles high; she had to get into E.A.T to become good enough as he Mom.

Maka looked at the time and sighed, it was five. There was a curfew on students at six. Most found ways around it but Maka was not going to take chances on her first day. She got up and Soul looked up at her and asked if she was leaving, she nodded and he got up saying goodbye to Black*Star and Tsu who lived nearby. He followed her out the door.

When they were outside Soul offered to walk her home, she nodded thanking him as well. The street was made of black, white and grey, and Maka found herself turning to Soul to watch his eyes. She wondered what other colours he was made of, almost as much as she wondered what she was like. She avoided red in clothes, picking whatever colour. She could look like a clown and she wouldn't notice. Sometimes she wished she wasn't a meister, to have the pressure of finding someone or have a part colour vision forever.

They talked about everything and nothing and she felt like she knew everything about Soul but at the same time nothing. He was eighteen; or would be in 4 months. He had a motorbike; he also had a license not that a student of the academy would need one. He lived in the spare room of Tsubaki and Black*Star's place. He manifested his weapon prematurely and had been with the academy since he was 12. "My parents sent me off to get training in early, thinking, if I got in their early I could graduate quickly and retire from combat quickly" he shook his head "my family is made of musicians but my grandmother was a weapon so I got the genes. I'm still expected to continue the tradition."

It was kind of sad, his ideas not being taken into account, but he said he didn't mind, he wasn't doing what they wanted anyway. She told him about how she came home from her uncle Stein's house to find her mother gone, after a while she got really anxious and wouldn't leave the house. "That's when papa told me she had left, but it didn't take me long to figure out why. He's a bit of a get around honestly; it pisses me off but he copes I guess."

They stopped at her apartment building and Soul sighed before looking at her straight in the eye "up until I was nearly two I was completely colour blind. No colour what so ever. My family thought I was partnerless, broken. It was a bit embarrassing to them that I would be a partnerless weapon" he looked away "I was told that one day when I was nearly two I had randomly started screaming in pain, and didn't stop for a while, then I had started picking up everything that was green"

She looked down before looking back up "my first memory I can think of was me going to a strawberry farm and loving it so much because I could see everything. Mama told me about Weapons and meisters and how my partner would have eyes like those strawberries." Maka smiled, and Soul returned it brightly and she laughed "she was wrong" he frowned before she added "yours are more like blood." Soul started laughing and she joined in.

Soul straightened up and held out his hand re-introducing himself smoothly "I'm Soul Eater"

"Maka Albarn" She replied taking his hand, feeling a static shock run though her. She winced, feeling paralysed. When she opened them Maka nearly cried she could _see_ everything. The brightness of the colours on the buildings, the greens on the trees, the _sky_ currently she felt like she could write a book about everything she saw in the blue. The most impressive sight was Soul. His hair was white as she had seen before, he was tanned and was wearing a orange shirt under his black leather jacket. He was better in colour. He was staring back at her with a wide wonder before smiling and pulling her in for a hug. He pulled back grinning at her "I thought it was you hoped so, your amazing." Looked slightly jittery before pulling her back in "Maka Albarn, would you be my meister?"

They wasn't much of a different choice.


End file.
